Actuatable occupant restraining systems having an inflatable air bag in vehicles are known in the art. Such systems that are controlled in response to whether the seat is occupied, an object on the seat is animate or inanimate, a rearward facing child seat present on the seat, and/or in response to the occupant's position, weight, size, etc., are referred to as smart restraining systems. One example of a smart actuatable restraining system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,330,226.
The effectiveness of control algorithms for smart occupant restraint systems can be enhanced by providing noise-free, high dynamic range images to the control system. To this end, some imaging systems employ a multiple slope technology to increase the intra-scene dynamic range of an associated image sensor. A compression scheme is utilized to fit the addition information representing the extended dynamic range into the same number of bits per pixel. This compression results in a loss of image contrast which can have a negative impact on the operation of the control algorithm.